The following letter first appeared in the June 21, 2013 edition of the AAC’s Weekly Update. Sign up for this free email here.
Dear Friends in Christ,
I am on my way home from a week of meetings at Nashotah House for the Anglican Church in North America. Since 1996, the American Anglican Council has been involved in the renewal and realignment of Anglicanism in North America. Until 2003, the AAC was deeply committed to renewing the Episcopal Church from within. Bishop David Anderson, our President and CEO, was a principal leader in that effort and a co-organizer of the historic 2003 Plano Gathering that galvanized so many leaders, ordained and otherwise, to create what is now the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
Since 2008, the AAC has been committed to the creation, development and flourishing of the ACNA. Though no longer seeking to change TEC from within, we are still helping congregations and leaders within TEC stand for Jesus Christ and the Gospel. We have invested our time, our staff, our resources and our future into building up Anglican leaders and congregations all over North America to fulfill Jesus Christ’s “Great Commission” in Matthew 28:16-20 – to make disciples of Jesus Christ who in turn will make disciples of ALL nations!
One of the ways I have been investing my time on behalf of the AAC is to help build up missional leaders through our Clergy Leadership Training Institute (CLTI), to raise up “coaches” who can work with the clergy and lay leaders of Anglican congregations who want to grow, and to help develop mission-friendly structures in the ACNA that will further Christ’s Commission and the mission of the ACNA – “to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.” To borrow a phrase from Archbishop Duncan’s address at Provincial Council on Tuesday (via that great American philosopher Yogi Berra!), it’s about making sure that we have structures that “help keep the main thing the main thing,” It’s about learning from the past and making sure that we do not end up with the ungodly structures that we left.
That’s no easy task! I have been spending quite a lot of time in our Governance Task Force working on constitution and canons for the ACNA. I’ve also spent a lot of time working with groups all over North America who want to form dioceses. I can’t begin to tell you how deeply I have been impressed by the personal witness and faithfulness of all the leaders I have been working with, both clergy and lay. Their focus on reaching unchurched people, their patience in working on structures, their prayerful humility in the face of obstacles and disappointment has often challenged and convicted me.
As we seek to change our church culture from maintenance to mission, I find a constant tension between what I would describe as two oftentimes competing values. One the one hand, we have the need and desire for Anglican order that is recognizable to other Anglicans all over the world. On the other hand, we have the need and desire for structures that will enable the rapid deployment of emerging and younger church planters and leaders – structures that will promote church planting, local outreach to the community and maximum evangelism. Both of these values are good! But how do you balance the historic order of what we fondly call “The Great Tradition” (small “c” catholic) with the flexibility and flattened structures needed for maximum mission?
What I’ve discovered (and others) is that when we frame the issue in terms of becoming a diocese – almost as an end in itself – it is easy to lose sight of mission, to get bogged down in the details, and even at times to let pride and personalities get in the way. But when we can re-frame the issue in terms of how we can create structures that will significantly further the mission strategies of reaching North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ, we can actually rise above the temptations of pride, power and personalities.
I want to report to you that that is indeed what I saw this week at our ACNA meetings here at Nashotah House. We had eight applications for new dioceses and one application for a diocese in formation. A lot of hard work and prayer went into every one of those applications. But at the same time, each one faced potential challenges around those competing values of Anglican order vs. missional flexibility. There was enormous potential for disagreement and hurt at any point along the way.
Early on, the Executive Committee of the ACNA, after much discussion and prayer, came up with a resolution which helped us re-frame the issue along the lines I just mentioned. It included the following language:
“We [the ACNA] will seek to foster a climate in which the formation of a diocese is not the goal but rather an instrument of mission, which should be undertaken only when it will significantly further the mission strategy of the Province to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.”
With that prayerful and biblical reframing of the issue, the conversations that followed were respectful, prayerful and helpful. They led to spectacular (and I mean spectacular) acts of humility and grace towards each other. I believe we took a step towards becoming that one united Biblical and missionary Anglicanism we aspire to be in North America. I expect we will continue to experience growing pains. How will we strengthen that which is good with a view towards long term financial and numerical sustainability? How will we balance those concerns with faith in God for all provisions needed and prayerful trust??
Frankly, I would not exchange these challenges for any of the pains we experienced back in Egypt! These are exactly the pains and challenges we should embrace as we bring more and more people to Jesus, plant more churches and deploy emerging young church planters and leaders. You can be sure that the AAC will continue to help facilitate those discussions, to the glory of God and the building up of Great Commission Anglicans in North America and beyond!
Yours in Christ,
Phil+
The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey, COO, American Anglican Council
